Mercury's 88-day orbit around the Sun will carry it to its closest point to
the Sun – its perihelion – at a distance of
0.31 AU from the Sun.

Unlike most of the planets, which follow almost exactly circular orbits around
the Sun only varying in their distance from the Sun by a few percent,
Mercury has a significantly elliptical orbit.

Its distance from the Sun varies between 0.307 AU at perihelion (closest
approach to the Sun), and 0.467 AU at aphelion (furthest recess from the
Sun). This variation, of over 50%, means that its surface receives over twice
as much energy from the Sun at perihelion as compared to aphelion.

However, this makes little difference to Mercury's telescopic appearance, since
little if any detail on its surface can be resolved by ground-based telescopes.
Although its changing seasons have an incredible effect upon its surface
temperatures, there is little change that is visible to amateur observers.

From Ashburn (click to change), Mercury will be difficult to observe as it will appear no higher than 12° above the horizon. It will be visible in the dawn sky, rising at 05:22 (EDT) – 1 hour and 28 minutes before the Sun – and reach an altitude of 12° above the eastern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 06:31.

Warning

Never attempt to point a pair of binoculars or a telescope at an object close to the Sun. Doing so
may result in immediate and permanent blindness.

Source

The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE405 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).

This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.